Google Tops Fifty Billion Market Cap With Innovation

Mike Banks Valentine

Google Tops Fifty Billion Market Cap With Innovation
Yahoo See, Yahoo Buy Strategy Makes Them Number Two

by Mike Banks Valentine © October 26, 2004

Google market value has topped $50B, so now they're worth
more in dollar value than Yahoo. That goes right in line
with being worth more in search value and relevance.
(CBS MarketWatch)

I've written before that Yahoo has their fingers in so many
pies that they don't have the necessary attention on search
that Google does. Google only buys companies that offer
services, software and add-ons which increase the value of
the Google search experience.
http://www.website101.com/arch/archive140.html

Yahoo buys companies when they think they might be able to
squeeze some extra bit of profit from them and add to the
already confusing array of services which take an alphabet
soup of 109 Yahoo "properties", broken down alphabetically.
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/family/more/

Yahoo bought up all the available search "properties" within
the last couple of years and, as I said in mid-July of 2003,
"Well if it is a horse race, Yahoo may gain on leader Google
if they are able to integrate their Inktomi and Overture (and
by extension, Altavista and Fast/AllTheWeb) purchases into
relevant search results that searchers trust. But all of the
Jockeys on those horses will be whipping their charges toward
the finish line with an eye to the winning purse."
http://searchengineoptimism.com/Yahoo_acquire_Overture.html

The fact is - Yahoo search is no better than Google now that
they have bought up all real competitors. Referred traffic
from Yahoo search results to web sites is still only one fifth
that of Google at 70% versus Yahoo's anemic 15 to 20%.
http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html

The new MSN search may pose a threat to Google if they continue
on their current path toward relevant search results. As of
October 2004, Google market capitalization of $52 billion with
shares hovering around $160 per share price, reflects the true
value of Google.

Yahoo is kind of like a WalMart, a "Portal" with everything
under one roof and over a hundred wildly diverse "properties"
that don't contribute to search relevance or search value.

Google confirmed today that they have no intention of becoming
a portal, but instead intend to keep the laser focus on search
that made them number one. This focus was underlined by CEO
Eric Schmidt's comment in the Financial Times of London, "We
are not building a browser," to stop that circulating rumor.
(Financial Times)

Yahoo! Search has introduced a Google clone search page but
who will see it? If you visit the Yahoo home page, you'll see
a couple of hundred links to all their services such as Yahoo
Jobs, Yahoo Dating, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Movies
Yahoo Stores, Yahoo News, Yahoo Web Hosting, "More Yahoo" and
"Even MORE Yahoo" links near the bottom of the home page, blah
blah blah, etc. But they've put up an elegant Google clone for
their search page at search.yahoo.com. That nobody will ever
see unless it is bookmarked or typed directly into the browser
address bar!

Yes, you can search from the Yahoo home page and that is the
most prominent of all the Yahoo's glut of stuff, but I'll bet
they posted this spare little copy of Google's home page to
appease those who don't want to wade through the rest of the
mess to get to search. This placement means that only those
of us that purposely AVOID their home page and jump right to
search by typing http://search.yahoo.com/ into the address bar
will find that page.

That's the equivalent of MSN of course where you must type in
http://search.msn.com to see THEIR spare search page. But MSN
has at least kept some elements of branding in the design of
that page, while Yahoo has made their page LOOK like the Google
home page with a Yahoo logo. I can't wait to see how they'll
integrate Yahoo Desktop Search into the browser ... the same
way Google did.

Yahoo enters the Desktop Search race how? Buying a company!
According to Mike Grehan in a Pandia Search News article
"Yahoo! may also be joining in the race for Total Search. They
recently acquired the e-mail software company Stata Labs which
sells an e-mail application called Bloomba that lets people
search message text and attachments."


Today the market has confirmed what searchers already know,
that Google now tops Yahoo in financial relevance as well as
in search relevance. Google leads and Yahoo follows. Google
develops new technology while Yahoo buys it.

Google envisions & innovates but with Yahoo it's more like
"Yahoo see, Yahoo do" done by buying another company.

About the Author

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Mike Banks Valentine does Search Engine Optimization
contact him at http://SEOptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm
Visit http://RealitySEO.com for Mike's daily commentary
on the Search Engine business. Subscribe to the RSS feed
or join and comment yourself on the latest search news.
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